Downtown Concord 2026: BART, Todos Santos Plaza, and the Next Chapter

Downtown Concord centers on Todos Santos Plaza, a leafy square ringed by restaurants, live music, and the offices and retail that make the neighborhood the city's urban core. John Muir Medical Center anchors the city's economic base nearby, and Concord BART sits one stop from downtown, giving the area a transit story few Contra Costa neighborhoods can claim. In 2026, that story is getting sharper.

What is happening around Concord BART?

Concord Station's lighting modernization, a project replacing aging lights with LED upgrades from the concourse to the platform, was in construction and expected to be complete by summer 2026. Further out, BART has flagged Concord Station as a priority for commercial and mixed-use development in its five-to-ten-year plan, and anticipates soliciting a developer for transit-oriented development between 2029 and 2033, with a later phase to replace surface parking lots. The city's Downtown Specific Plan, first adopted in 2014, is being updated for the BART Priority Development Area, setting the zoning and design rules the future transit village will build on.

What does the Navy deal mean for downtown?

In September 2026 the U.S. Navy approved a $44.6 million financial agreement that lets the City of Concord and Brookfield Properties move the former Concord Naval Weapons Station redevelopment into its specific plan stage. That project, which I covered in Concord Naval Weapons Station: 12,000 New Homes Reshape the East Bay, will bring roughly 12,272 homes and 6 million square feet of commercial space to the city's east side. As that builds out, downtown stands to gain as the city's jobs, retail, and entertainment node.

What can you buy near downtown today?

Concord's citywide median sits near $725,000 to $755,000, and the downtown area offers some of the city's most accessible entry points. Midtown Concord condo medians run roughly $342,000 for a one-bedroom and about $410,000 for a two-bedroom, some of the closest you can get to BART and the plaza while keeping the purchase price nearly half the single-family median. Down payment assistance programs can stretch those numbers further. Single-family homes in the downtown blocks price above the condo tier but below Concord's hill neighborhoods.

Is now a good time to buy or sell downtown?

For buyers, the near-term boom is not here yet, and that is the opportunity: the transit village is still years from breaking ground, so today's prices do not yet price it in. For sellers, a downtown condo or a well-kept bungalow near BART is exactly the kind of property online bidding tends to surface to the widest pool of buyers. Either way, start with current numbers, not predictions. The wider Concord picture, including neighborhoods like Dana Estates and Concord Hills, is in my Concord Real Estate Market 2026 report.